European Expansion
Prior to the European age of exploration I would say the best bet would be the Fuegians, they have the shortest distance to travel and would be more used to the climate. Although it is still further than the Fawkland islands that were uninhabited till the 18th century. All the other candidates are much too distant athough the Polynesians spread remarkable distances across the pacific the individual hops between each island was much more resonable than reaching Antartica and was aided by seasonal trade winds. The trouble with the Polynesians was that their technology and their suite of crops was all tropical. New Zealand was the southernmost end of their functional range, and even there, they found that their crops and lifestyle simply didn't work in much of the country, requiring some adaptation to temperate climate. Antarctica, even green Antarctica would have been a lot tougher. The first person to discover it, could well be Captain Cook as this Antartica has a big pre dicovery buterfly net. --- The closest population are certainly the Fuegians, though the failure to occupy or even apparently reach the Falklands works against them. They're also pretty recent all things considered. A Fuegian entry into Antarctica would place somewhere between 9,000 and 1,000 years ago, give or take. I'm not so sure about Captain Cook getting all the way there. He was skirting the Antarctic on his voyages around July, which would be the dead of winter in South Pole terms. So I'm figuring the winter storms and sea ice would have been at their worst. For literary purposes, I'm assuming that he made it all the way to land and became quite unhappy. - Cook initially crossed the Antarctic circle on January 17 and made his first close approach January 31, 1773. He crossed the Antarctic circle again in December of 1773, and then again in January, 1774, which puts him at the height of the Southern Hemisphere/Antarctic summer. Which, when you think about it, stands to reason. Actually, the notion of Cook, or Kerguelen, or one of those guys discovering a virgin continent with a semi-european climate was quite compelling. Lots of interesting squibbly great power stuff potentially happening, over the next couple of centuries. I might go back and do that timeline sometime. Entirely arbitrarily, I've opted for an Australian rafting incident. After that though, the butterfly net goes up again, and stays in place until Captain Cook. ---------- I wonder how long it will take for the Europeans to genocide the continent? This civilization is looking to have some pretty unpleasant customs. You assume it will be the Europeans doing the genocide? I admire your faith. Anyway, I'm watching this TL. An Antarctic society could pose a threat to future European expansion into the Indian and Pacific Oceans (assuming minimal butterflies). I don't see anyone else doing it, unless they genocide themselves or it is the Europeans who are killed off first. I guess it might be interesting to see some southern African culture encountering them... I think the end result will be something of a stalemate, with the Europeans controlling the Northern Hemisphere, while our serial killer protagonist claim hold Antarctica, Australia and its surrounding islands, Southern Africa, OTL Argentina, Chile and the Falkland islands, at least in the short term, after that its anyone's guess - That's what I was thinking of saying. "Is the most uplifting part of this thread going to be the part where the Europeans turn up and deploy the Maxim gun on everyone? Wow, now that says something." ---- This world has really blown my mind, especially as a Lovecraft fan. but would there be colonisation attempts from Europeans? Cook discovers the continent in the early 18th century in your timeline, so that means that the main powers that could attempt colonisation are: England: Discoverers Spain: Controlls nearby South America Portugal: Colonies in the Southern part of Africa, could do it as an attempt to rebuild their nearly weakened empire Dutch: From the Cape Colony, could try to establish a trading post. all these powers would respond violently to the inevitable destruction of their initial attempts by natives. Though most likely the established outposts (most likely forts) would propably cooperate even when their nations are at war, this antarctic alliance would need to cooperate to survive if these outposts are established at all. I think it's been said the Tsalal are as advanced, if not more so, as Europeans at the time of contact. I'm going to guess they'll either be plague resistant, or unleash their own plagues on the rest of the world (since they have their own domesticates), otherwise they won't be such scary fucks. If they have such an aversion to white sexual selection could make the whites of there eyes evolve to brown or black over such timescales. Alot of Africans already have off white eye whites. The Apes have very brown eye whites they seem to of lightenedin humans to aid facial comunication. That's fascinating. Genetic in the Tsalal There will be significant pressure (due to poor and low light combined) towards lighter skin. With the cultural taboo against white, perhaps they'll develop an unusual skin pigment that is less UV absorptive. This pigment could be any color, but not white (taboo) and probably not black or standard brown (very dark pigmentation is usually UV absorbtive, and the traditional 'brown' shades found in humans are produced by UV-absorbtive eumelanin and keratin). - So, you think they'll end up looking like those creepy Skull Island natives from Peter Jackson's King Kong? - According the site "Genetics Home Reference" persons with milder cases of Osteogenesis imperfecta have the whites of theirs eyes blue or grey. Giving the small founding population some similar mutation could appear, and if natural selection works against it cultural selection could preserve the eye color. http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/osteogenesis-imperfecta